Microsoft Tweaks Browser Ballot As EU Deal Nears 187
CWmike writes "Microsoft has revamped the browser ballot screen demanded by European Union antitrust regulators and may get final approval as early as Dec. 15, a source familiar with the case has told Computerworld. As first reported by Bloomberg, Microsoft modified the ballot screen after rivals, including Opera Software and Mozilla, demanded changes. Last month, Opera, Mozilla and Google submitted change requests to the European Commission, asking that the order of the browsers be randomized and that the ballot be displayed in its own application, not in Internet Explorer. According to the source, who asked not to be identified because the terms of the settlement have not been officially approved, the top five browsers — IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Apple's Safari — will appear in random order each time the ballot is displayed."
Re:We know what this is really about (Score:1, Informative)
Is Microsoft using its monopoly in operating systems to hamper competition in the calculator app space?
I don't appreciate you side-stepping what i'm asking in previous posts, but whatever. If you actually read cases like this, you'll see that these companies are not demanding fairness in distribution of their apps for the sake of market-awareness fairness. They're asking for it because IE is damaging competition in the browser market.
Read up on the US vs Microsoft case:
http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm
Check out how he defines the markets and how he concludes that microsoft was indeed hampering competition. Then come back and make a similar case for your calculator app we can discuss. :]
Re:I'd like to see the same for search engines (Score:2, Informative)
I am not sure if it was IE7 or IE8, but I found that installing an additional search provider in IE after making Firefox the default browser was impossible. Instead of opening an IE window to download and install the search provider, it opened the default browser (now FF). The one time that IE should have been hardcoded as the browser to open, the default browser is opened instead. Accidental?
Re:We know what this is really about (Score:4, Informative)
Re:We know what this is really about (Score:1, Informative)
This is getting so damn boring when people like you evidently don't bother to find out even the basics of antitrust legislation.
1. MS has a monopoly in the operating system market. You might disagree with that since Linux etc. exist but your opinion doesn't matter. MS had the best lawyers on the planet arguing their case and I doubt that you could do any better. But really what operating system choices do you think Joe Consumer has when he wants to run most apps compared to what DVD player choices he has when he wants to play most DVDs?
2. There was a pre-existing market for web browsers that were sold just like any other sofware before MS began including IE.